Random Thoughts: Dizzle, Mt. Rainier and My Favorite Real Estate Writer

You should really check out Dizzle.com. The concept is very interesting to me and I believe it has the potential to be a great resource for anyone that is in the business of marketing their content online. If you blog, that's you. Basically they have a points system that allows you to offer points when people share your content across their social networks. You can also earn points by sharing others content to your followers. Of course, sharing content is all about finding stuff that is worth sharing, but Dizzle makes it fun and a little bit interesting. I'm looking forward to having lunch with Justin Mchood the founder of Dizzle next week. I have a ton of questions for him. Mainly I'm interested in learning (if he's willing to share) some of the ideas he has about adding value to the points that are exchanged on the site. I believe that if he can figure out a way to add value to the concept of points on Dizzle that he may have a massively successful venture on his hands. Anyway, check it out. They've done a great job of making the set up process easy and informational all at the same time. We could learn a thing or two from them in that regard.

I love Instagram! There, I said it. Want to know why? Because it's made me more aware of the beautiful things around me. For most of my life, I've never been very artistic or into taking pictures. I've been all over the world and don't have a picture to show for it. I have plenty of great memories, but no pictures. With Instagram, I've been trying to capture cool pictures of the places I go and the things I do. Not just any picture......but a good one. And it's so easy to enhance them and make them better.........and then yesterday happened........

I took a picture of my sushi from dinner last night. It was a pretty good pic as far as sushi pictures go, if I do say so myself. But instead of just posting it with some attempt at humor or wit like I've mostly done in the past, I included a few hashtags. I used #sushi and #foodporn along with a few other meaningless fun ones. Guess what happened? In about 5 minutes I had 14 likes on the picture from a bunch of people I didn't know......and now I'm hooked. Would love to have you connect with me there, I'm @activebob on Instagram......but only if you promise to keep the cliche pics to a minimum.

Greg Nino is a reckless sports gambler and a typical Dallas Cowboys fan. Arrogant, full of himself (themselves?) and completely unrealistic based on one game. I keep trying to remind him that Tony "Choke" Romo is their QB, but he refuses to listen to me. His biggest boast is his most ridiculous.......that the Cowgirlsboys are going to score 31 points in Century Link (or 'the Clink' as we affectionately refer to it here in Seattle) Field against the Seahawks defense. Looking forward to the game next week.......and Greg sending me something 'truly Texas' when we win. (If we lose, this paragraph will disappear next Sunday night, haha)

I went up to Mt. Rainier this past weekend with my dad and son. It had been at least 20 years since I'd seen the Mountain that close. Until I was 8, we lived at the foot of the mountain (Ashford WA) and it was common to go up into the park. We drove up to Paradise, which is the highest point to which you can drive. What a beautiful sight! If you're from this area, I don't have to tell you how imposing the mountain is over much of Western Washington. There are some places in the area (coming up HWY 410 for instance) where you come around the corner and it almost seems like you are going to drive straight into it. It's one of the things I miss most about Seattle when I'm not there.

The thing I miss the least.....the rain of course!! But guess what.....it hasn't rained in Seattle in 48 days. 48 DAYS!!!!!! Most people in Seattle are walking around with shit eating grins (where the heck did this phrase come from??) on their faces and mostly befuddled at what the heck is going on. The actual reality of how much it rains in Seattle is not what someone from other parts of the country would believe. Natives to this area perpetuate the myth in an effort to keep people from California from moving here and driving the cost of living through the roof......(our dirty little secret, so don't tell anyone in CA)

One of the best writers in the entire real estate industry is Rob Hahn. If you are not familiar with Rob, you should really be reading his stuff. It would be a major coup if I could convince him to post his blogs on ActiveRain from time to time as he writes about some super important high level challenges and happenings in the real estate industry. His most recent post about the Chicago area association of REALTORS® suing one of their own members for defamation is a must read for just about any REALTOR® but especially for anyone that has served on the board of their local association at any point in your career.

How much time did you purposely set aside this week for prospecting? Don't lie to yourself........I'm talking about having it on your calendar and sitting down with a plan for how you were going to create new contacts for your business. Or I'm talking about taking your existing contacts and leveraging them to earn new business. If your truthful answer is 'none' then I would guess that your business is very susceptible to peaks and valleys. It's probable that if you didn't spend any time this week prospecting it's because you have deals currently that you are in the middle of getting to the closing table or clients that you are working with to find that next home or sell their current one. But without prospecting that closing (peak) you have coming up will immediately be followed by crickets (valley) as you search for your next deal. Successful real estate agents make it a priority every week (day?) to set aside time even when they are busy to keep the pipeline full.....without exception.